I agree to a point.

But also look at Ukraine. They are punching well above their weight with asymmetrical tactics, but Russia is not defeated.

Drones and other autonomous, cheap weaponry changes a lot. Smaller states and non-state actors can inflict much more serious and expensive damage now more than ever.

Large weapons still matter though. If we ever were to enter an existential battle you would quickly see how big, expensive systems can still be advantageous. I am sure people will take issue with this comment but look at the relative restraint of Russia in Ukraine or the US in Iran vs, say, WWII. Modern morality prevents such scale and tactics until it does not. Then suddenly what matters are big weapons and the huge supply chains powering a war machine.

Both the US and Russia are also pivoting heavily towards drones, and they've been developing them for decades. Yes we have big, expensive weapons programs but we also have a lot of stuff ready or soon to be ready which is much, much cheaper.

Shot exchange is indeed a problem, but it's far more complex than this makes it sound. The opportunity cost of _not_ shooting down the drone isn't the cost of the drone, it's the cost of whatever it's going to destroy if you don't shoot it down.

Sometimes it makes sense to use a million dollar missile to destroy a $5,000 drone, if that drone would otherwise destroy an even more expensive air defense radar or energy production facility. This says nothing about the cost and value of the lives that might be lost in an enemy strike.

We would not be safer if the enemy had cheap drones and we had no weapons capable of fighting back.

The main problem is that air defense interception is incredibly challenging and expensive primarily because a mid-course defensive interceptor needs considerably greater capabilities than the weapon it is intercepting, because it needs to catch up to the incoming missile or drone mid-flight.

Sure, this can lead to massive overkill problems. Yes, the US should invest more in the low end of the high/low mix. But no, this does not mean there's no place for the high end, or that they should never be used to destroy lower end targets if that's all that is available.

A more interesting challenge, if you ask me, is in the naval domain. Imagine a capital ship has two options for defending against incoming threats - either fire an expensive and limited stock interceptor missile with a 99% kill chance, or wait until the threat is inside the range of a cheap cannon or laser system with a 95% kill chance. There's a real command level tradeoff to be made here. If you shoot every drone with interceptors, you lose shot exchange badly, and you just run out of interceptors. But if you let every target through into the engagement range of your close range systems, you run the risk that one makes it through to your ship, potentially causing damage and casualties.

The future of war is going to be wild one way or the other.

Also seems that having a very capable military that lets you project power around the world also invites that power to be used. See for instance the Iran war. Quite pointless by all accounts and wouldn't have happened if the US didn't have aircraft carriers to send around the world.

So perhaps thriftiness in defense spending would also invite a prioritization in actual defensive capabilities?

To be fair the US is making steps into this realm and it's definitely a known issue. Their Shahed derivative, laser weapons becoming more ubiquitous. I'm surprised how many drones countries are starting to manufacture. e.g the UK delivered 150k drones to Ukraine recently, based on the current state of the UK armed forces that kind of surprised me and definitely shows a change in ethos on how modern first world militaries will wage war in the future.

> A million dollar patriot missile to shoot down a cheap drone...

I guess it is a good thing then that this isn't something they actually do.

They use cheap weapons to shoot down cheap drones. Their primary anti-drone missile was developed in the 2010s and costs less than a Shahed.

There are so many companies working on this now (cheap anti-drone tech, cheap cruise missiles, cheap missile interceptors), what you're saying is kind of moot.

> A million dollar patriot missile to shoot down a cheap drone, etc.

Except this is more propaganda than truth. In general america does not use patriots to shoot down drones except in exceptional circumstances.

Not that the ecconomics of missile defense isnt a problem. It can be. But some of it has been highly exagerated.

> Increased defense spending actually makes the US less, not more, safe.

It just makes us spend more money on defense, which is the entire point.

The industry obviously wants more and more profits.

They are never going to recommend getting rid of $200m F22s and replacing them with 30 $300k drones that would be more effective and cost 5% as much money.

That's 5% as much profit for them. They're not interested.

They are interested in profits, not national security.

And as you pointed out, they'd prefer a LESS secure world that inherently demands more money going to security.

You could spend more on security to actually be more secure. It's just that no one with any power is interested in that world.

They're only interested in making more money.